NARRATIVE OF THE EXPEDITIONS 9) 
In the Rio de Poopé occurs a spring of superheated steam and water. This 
water mingles with and is gradually tempered by the water of the river. Small 
suches were observed in water of considerably more than 100°F. The same 
phenomenon occurs at Aguas Calientes in southern Peru. 
At the same altitude as the Titicaca-Poop6 altiplane the so-called Lake 
Ascotan is hemmed off by a ring of volcanoes. It is about twenty-five miles 
in extent and lies just within the border of Chile. It consists for the most 
part of muddy deposits of lime salts. Numerous pools and sluggish streams 
appear throughout, and drain away by seepage. At the bases of volcanoes 
along the eastern margin are many warm and cold springs. These are only 
shghtly brackish. Small Orestias are everywhere abundant here, though there 
isno communication with the outside. 
Between Ascotan and the coast at Antofagasta lie vast volcanic areas and 
the nitrate belt. Only one river which might support fish occurs—the Loa. 
But at Calama (elevation 7000 feet) it was found to be totally devoid of them. 
This is reported to be due to a waterfall twenty-five kilometers downstream, 
below which coastal forms were said to exist. 
.. with one exception few parasites were obtained from the many hundreds 
dissected ... resident in the cranial cavity of nearly every Orestias examined, 
not only in Lake Titicaca itself, but in tributary lakes and streams. 
In the lakes of the altiplane the great quantity of bird life in the broad plant 
zone of the littoral is noteworthy. There are many coots, cormorants, grebes, 
ducks, flamingoes, ibises, lapwings, and gulls. I estimated that there were 
not fewer than 10,000 wading birds per mile of the shore at the southern end 
of Lake Poopéo. 
_.. The smaller Orestias, hispe and carache sometimes occur in remarkable 
concentration, especially in the meadow ponds of the pampas. Frequently 
scores of them may be dipped up with a single swoop of the dipnet. Even a 
roadside sheep-washing pool, without outlet and very muddy, contained a 
multitude of isolated, pallid carachitos. In the same pools occur also vast 
numbers of small Dytiscid beetles. As a result... no fish were found which 
did not have the fins more or less abbreviated. 
After the lapse of a year I found myself back in Peru, this time as repre- 
sentative of Indiana University alone. The following extract is a brief account of 
the “Centennial Expedition’, occurring as it did in the university’s centennial 
year and that of the Republic of Peru. As it turned out the enterprise was finally 
reduced to a one-man expedition (Allen, 1921b; a fuller account, Allen, 1921a). 
Between June, 1918, and June, 1919, the Irwin Expedition of Indiana Uni- 
versity as a part of its work collected the fishes in the highlands of Peru, 
particularly in the Urubamba valley from the headwaters at La Raya, eleva- 
tion 14,150 feet, to Santa Ana, 3,000 feet. This work was done by Dr. C. H. 
Eigenmann and Miss Adele Kigenmann. Collections were made in the upper 
Huallaga basin between its headwaters about Cerro de Pasco and Goyllaris- 
quisga down to near Tingo Maria, 1,800 feet, mostly by the present writer. 
Further collections were made from Lake Junin, 13,500 feet, near Cerro de 
Pasco, in the Mantaro basin to Huanecayo, 10,500 feet, by myself and the 
Eigenmanns. Collections were also made from the headwaters of the Tarma 
River at Tarma, 10,000 feet, down to La Merced, about 2,500 feet, by the 
Eigenmanns. The Irwin Expedition thus collected in the headwaters of the 
